Watercolor Pencils. Which are best and why?

Hey there!
Today I wanted to talk about watercolor pencils, which I use along with my watercolors, and, first of all, I wanted to write a few words about the difference between colored pencils and watercolor pencils. So, in case you don’t know the difference, here’s the explanation: the lead inside the regular colored pencil is wax or oil based. The lead inside watercolor pencil is water soluble based.
The drawing with the colored pencil will not wash away, it will stay the same, no matter how much water you use. However, when you are using the watercolor pencils, the drawing will start to dissolve and become somewhat like if you have used watercolors.

Now let’s talk about the best watercolor pencils that we have on market. If you go on Amazon and search for “watercolor pencils” – you will be amazed how many different brands and prices there are.
I can’t say which is exactly the best for you, but I would say that if you are just a beginner, you can buy “Colore Watercolor Pencils” for example, these are good for the start and not expensive at all. The cost is about $24.99 for a set of 72 pencils. Another example: “Artist’s Choice” – this brand is very popular now. The price is only $19.99 for a set of 72 pencils on Amazon. But if you’re more than just a beginner you will need better ones.

Below, I made a list of the best and most popular brands. I searched them on Amazon and found the prices for each one of them for the set of 12 pencils.

In my opinion, all these 4 brands are really good. You just need to try these and find the ones that work best for you. The only thing is – if you are a professional artist, you probably need a set of 120 – 150 pencils 🙂

Why these brands are the best?

I can say that these pencils are very good for blending, easy to work with, don’t break easily, have really nice colors, and these are tested by the time and experience of thousands of artists.
If you are planning to do a lot of blending, you will need softer pencils (in my opinion, that would be Derwent or Caran D’ache – these are really super easy to blend), otherwise you wouldn’t want to get very soft pencils, because you will get an unwanted mess. Also if you like very intense colors then Derwent is your brand. But if you don’t want the intensity, and you want a soft look, then go for Faber Castell Albrecht Durer. And the last words would be for Caran D’ache, and again for Faber Castell Albrecht Durer – these water out really nicely and the colors break down very beautifully! And if you would ask me what would I choose if I had only one choice, – I would go with Caran D’ache, these are the best in my opinion.

Well, that would be it! If you know any other good brands of watercolor pencils, don’t hesitate to place a comment below! Thank you!

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